


the rungs of me be under you

by gdgdbaby



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2016-2017 NHL Season, Injury, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: Patrice has long since given up trying to understand why Brad does what he does.





	the rungs of me be under you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jellyfish_spine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfish_spine/gifts).



> dear jellyfish_spine: this story is a little twist on the soulbond/head-sharing trope, but i hope you enjoy it!
> 
> there's discussion of canonical injuries in this - nothing particularly graphic, but if that isn't your thing, maybe skip this one. many thanks to l for sending me links, t for talking things out with me, and both for looking this over :* title from fineshrine by purity ring.

Patrice feels the new bond snap into place around lunchtime, when most of the guys are sliding off the ice and heading to the showers. He wants to stay on for longer, grit his teeth through the persistent ache in his lower abdomen and practice his slapshot from the point, but after a couple more minutes of skating, the telltale pinprick at the back of his neck nudges him inexorably toward the tunnel. Patrice rolls his eyes as he stomps into the locker room and shakes his hands out of his gloves. Typical.

Brad always feels like a scratchy wool sweater in his mind, warm enough to offset the somewhat irritating itch of his presence. Going from the cool placidity of sharing headspace with Tuukka for the past week to Brad's unique brand of flushed vitality is a shock no matter how many times it's happened. Brad probably doesn't even have anything to be insistent about, today -- a new sandwich shop he wants to try, maybe, or something he doesn't want to miss on live TV, never mind that Patrice is pretty sure Brad's DVR works just fine.

Patrice has long since given up trying to understand why Brad does what he does. After years of cycling through countless temporary bonds with his teammates, he's found that it's much easier to just go along with it.

Zdeno gets up from his stall and slings a towel over his shoulder while Patrice finishes stripping off the rest of his gear. "Did it take?" he asks as he passes by, tapping on his own temple.

"Yeah," Patrice says, looking up. "Same thing, different week. How's the kid?"

A contemplative expression passes over Zdeno's face. Patrice still remembers how nervous he'd been about the idea of bonding with the captain straight out of the gate during his rookie season, and he'd had a pretty standard introduction to the NHL. Charlie's been thrust into the show in the middle of a playoff series; Patrice can't imagine how he must be feeling. "Not as bad as I expected, honestly," Zee says finally, as the two BU kids shuffle into the locker room freshly showered. "You should try to behave tomorrow, though," he adds with the ghost of a smile, nudging Patrice's shoulder as Brad and Pasta tumble through the door. "Promise me you won't slash anyone."

"Okay, but Bobby Ryan will almost certainly deserve it," Brad says, eyebrows arched high, before Patrice can even open his mouth.

Pasta laughs, tracking water across the floor on his way to his stall, and Patrice feels a burst of Brad's satisfaction like the taste of citrus in his mouth. He can't even deny that his penalty minutes do tend to see an uptick whenever Brad's in his head, which is often. Every team does it differently after all the players have gotten a feel for each other, but Claude always liked scheduling similar bond cycles for players that tended to be on the ice together. Cassidy hasn't seen fit to change that during his tenure so far.

The penalty side effect is a little embarrassing sometimes, but not enough that it's an issue. Patrice was never going to win the Lady Byng anyway. "I'm sure you'll be around to slash him for everyone, then," Patrice tells Brad evenly, and that toasty, prickly feeling settles around his neck again, as familiar as the pungent smell rising up from his damp shinguards. It's nice.

 

 

They manage to eke out a win in double overtime in Ottawa, no thanks to an untimely interference call on Patrice at the beginning of the last period of game five. When he's sitting in the box breathing hard, an undercurrent of amusement joins the bone deep exhaustion he can feel emanating from Brad on the bench. Patrice shoves a half-hearted equivalent of the middle finger down the bond and only feels the sense of mirth grow. The way their bond manifests has never been verbal, necessarily, but Patrice can still hear Brad saying _I told you so_ loud and smug in his head.

Kuraly scores less than ten minutes later, and Patrice lets the burgeoning feeling of elation and relief carry him all the way to the bus. By the time they're on the flight back to Boston, though, the adrenaline has subsided enough that the throbbing in his hip is starting to get overwhelming. Something about that last hit he'd thrown tweaked his groin, maybe. Whatever it was, the discomfort is worse than it's been in a while. He tries not to grit his teeth too hard, allows himself a minute to just breathe and swallow.

Patrice thinks he does a pretty good job of masking pain by now, not letting it bleed through to whoever he's bonded with any particular week, but Brad's always seemed to have a sixth sense about these things. Game six, 2013 -- they'd been in each other's heads during that series too, and he'd somehow known Patrice needed to be at the hospital before the period ended, before the doctors even knew.

Brad doesn't seem as urgent as he did then, and playing through a sports hernia is perhaps not quite as bad as playing through a punctured lung, but he still gets up halfway through the flight and comes back with a bag of ice, drops it on Patrice's armrest. "It'll help," he says, sounding a little gruff, like there's something caught in his throat.

"Thank you," Patrice says, voice low. Brad just nods at him and sinks back into his seat.

 

 

Game six in Boston goes to overtime again. Pasta gets called for holding, MacArthur scores on the power play, and then it's all over. They go through the handshake line in a blur. Patrice lets himself get back to the locker room before he sits down and grimaces, pain radiating out from his groin in concentric circles. Fuck.

It's disappointing, of course, but Patrice also feels -- relieved. He can talk to the doctors now, get this thing fixed. He doesn't really register much of what Zdeno says before he lets them break to shower, but he does feel it when Brad starts pricking at the back of his neck like clockwork.

As a general rule, hockey players don't stay bonded over the summer. Most guys are either vacationing with family or getting whatever surgery they should've had during the season. There's no need to build chemistry with your team when you aren't playing with them, and everything starts back up in the fall: Zee's calm stability, Krej like a quiet pool of unperturbed water, Pasta's youthful exuberance. Brad, who's always so warm.

Patrice likes ending the season with Brad in his head, but it does make it a little more difficult to break things off until September rolls around again.

"Hey," comes a voice from his left, and Patrice looks up to see Brad staring down at him, mouth twisted in a facsimile of a smile. "How you feeling?"

For a moment, Patrice entertains the thought of lying. It wouldn't matter; Brad already knows something's up, even if he doesn't know the exact details. More importantly, though, Patrice just doesn't want to keep it from him anymore. "Not great," he says, exhaling through his teeth, and the furrow in Brad's brow smooths out a little.

He jerks his thumb out the door of the locker room. "Trainers are available," he says, too casual, and Patrice feels the tickling nudge at his nape again, recognizes it for what it must mean: _don't practice more if you're hurting_ and _take care of yourself_ and _stop being stupid about your body_. He remembers waking up on Tuesday morning after they lost the Stanley Cup final four years ago and seeing Brad's white face twitching in fitful sleep, curled up uncomfortably in an armchair next to Patrice's hospital bed.

Brad's always had a lot to say, but the way he says them has changed across the slow march of time, every cycle of bonding and rebonding. He came to visit Patrice in the hospital every other day after the series against the Hawks; he kept bringing Patrice bland homemade soup. The bond had faded naturally by then with the end of the season, but Brad still made an effort. It meant something to him. Looking back, Patrice can see echoes of the same pattern, distance offering clarity, like dots on canvas forming an image when you finally step away. _Take care of yourself. Don't make things worse. This is important to me._ There are plenty of things Patrice hasn't let himself think about, too preoccupied with the physical to expend energy on anything else, but maybe he should start. "Yeah," Patrice says, rising gingerly to his feet. "I'll go talk to them."

 

 

Patrice tells the reporters about needing surgery during his exit interviews. There isn't much surprise about the injury, all things considered, but he gets a couple questions about the timetable -- twelve weeks, give or take. Plenty of time to recover before the beginning of next season. He says what he has to about their lackluster campaign and the brighter future, and then he sits down to clean out his stall after everyone has moved on to chat with the other guys.

On the far side of the room, Charlie's talking about the playoff experience and being bonded to Zee for a week. Tuukka's being asked about Worlds, and Brad's being asked about -- Patrice.

"I mean," he hears Brad say, "that's what the bonds are for, right? You gotta look out for your teammates. It's a long season. With Bergy, I always try to make it easier for him."

He glances over, and the corner of his mouth lifts when Patrice raises his eyebrows. It's nothing they haven't said about one another before, since Claude put them on the same line way back when, but Patrice still feels arrested by it all the same.

"We've been playing together for a long time, you know," he continues, hamming it up for the camera. "I wanna keep doing it. We make each other better." A broad grin, flash of teeth, warmth cupping the back of Patrice's neck. "One of these days I might even win the Selke."

 

 

They grab lunch with some of the guys after clean-out. "I'm sorry," Patrice says over their sushi, poking at a piece of tuna with his chopsticks, and Brad glances up from his food, mouth turned down into a frown of confusion. It's difficult to put into words what he means, but he tries to, anyway. "I know it isn't easy for you to play through me being hurt. I'll try to be better."

Brad shakes his head, fidgeting with the sweating glass of water next to his plate. "I get it," he says, shrugging a little. "You wanna play, and I want you to play -- but I also want you to be healthy." He makes a face and then smiles, self-aggrandizing. "Ugh. I'm not used to being this sincere."

Patrice snorts. Funny how hard it can be to talk to someone you've been sharing your head with for seven years. "I appreciate it," he says quietly, and then, "I wanna play with you for a long time, too." Something about the way Brad's looking at him makes him ask, "Are you gonna bring me soup after my surgery this time?"

Brad laughs, loud and full-throated, and Zee tilts his head over, mildly curious. "I'm much better at cooking now than I was before," he offers. "I've stopped forgetting to add salt."

"I'll look forward to it, then," Patrice says. The bond's already starting to fade as they get deeper into the offseason, but he isn't worried about that. He'll have his surgery, and Brad will visit him while he's recovering. Every day that passes just brings them closer to September.


End file.
